Lorain producer's 'Experiment' heads to the Lorain Palace big screen

MORNING JOURNAL/SAM GREENE Producer Keith Kuhn poses under the marquee at the Palace Theater in Lorain, Ohio, on Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013. Kuhn's film "The Experiment" will be shown at the Palace on Sept. 14 at 7:00 pm.

LORAIN - Lifelong Lorain resident Keith Kuhn is in the middle of an experiment. And he wants the viewing public to be a part of it, simply by watching his hour and 16-minute film titled, "The Experiment." It will be shown at 7 p.m. Sept. 14 at the Lorain Palace Theatre, 617 Broadway, Lorain. Admission is $8. For the past 18 months, Kuhn, 62, has spent his money and time on his first feature film. "It was off the top of my head. Just thinking of things. Outer space stuff. You start creating it and it blossoms into everything," he said. I've always liked movies," Kuhn said. "As a kid, I was really impressionable. The stuff I saw in movies, I thought it was real. Then you learn that it is not real, but movie magic. Four years ago, I got into computers. I started learning and reading about movie-making. And I learned technical advice about computers," said Kuhn, who uses a Blu-ray format in his movie-making. Blu-ray disc refers to the blue laser used to read the disc, which allows information to be stored at a greater density than is possible with the longer-wavelength red laser used for DVDs. "These days, computers do everything, except the dishes," Kuhn said. Regarding his upcoming debut as a filmmaker, Kuhn said, "I'm pretty relaxed about all this." As for his past employment, Kuhn said he's worked many jobs in Lorain. "I've worked at Ford, American Crucible, many jobs, many and various jobs," he said. "I get bored very easily.". Kuhn was adamant about not revealing the surprise ending of his film but he did offer a glimpse. "The message part of the movie touches on the possibility that this whole life we're living, maybe it's all just an experiment," he said. "We might go on. There might be such a thing as reincarnation." Or the possibility that the human race is a colossal, long-running? experiment? being? conducted by extraterrestrials. ?"Or that our government is working with their government 'out there,'" Kuhn said. Or all or none of the above. Asked what he most wants people who view his movie to come away with, Kuhn said, "They can take away from it whatever they want. Like when people read the Bible. They interpret it differently. This movie is a wondrous journey. "Yes, there's a message. But you have to see the whole thing, from beginning to end, to get the message," Kuhn said. Kuhn used dozens of film snippets, like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, to put together his movie. "The most difficult part were the glitches," he said. "Every computer program has got its own glitches. Mine was no exception." The intentionally secretive nature of his movie makes one wonder how it will end. At moments, it has the visual splendor and slow-motion grandeur of Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey." Planets collide with each other. Space satellites whirl and toss about in the black void. The satellites come into a close-up view before flying away into nothingness. The images are interspersed with the narrator mysteriously discussing "the experiment." At other times, the DNA double helix appears, filling up the screen, then re-appearing as a constellation of stars. Like a cosmic tennis match, Kuhn bounces the visual ball from the infinitesmal to the infinite and back again. Combine the spacey imagery with the equally spacey music, and the movie elicits from the viewer several "wows!" "I call it the 'wow factor,'" Kuhn said. For further information, email kthkuhn@yahoo.com.